This study investigates the language ideologies manifested in the linguistic hierarchies produced by relevant EU governmental/political institutions through their language requirements for visa application documents. Based on the theoretical framework of Language Management Theory (LMT), this study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining…

Taking a multi-level perspective on language-in-public-space policy, this study investigates the way Tunisia's dominant languages are dealt with in three independent but interrelated activities of language policy: official texts, public talk, and the actual practices of business actors in five commercial districts in metropolitan Tunis. Detailed…

Soon after Kachru (1992) promoted the notion of the World of English(es) through his 'inner-outer-expanding circle' principle, academic audiences started to recognize that the number of English nonnative speakers had noticeably surpassed that of native speakers. Such a phenomenon has encouraged English learners of diverse lingua-cultural…

Language is something many individuals take for granted. It is usually when we discover that our language (or language variety) is different from and perhaps less valued than, the language of others or that our options are somehow limited, either because 'we do not speak/understand a language or language variety, or use it inappropriately or…

Owing to its economic growth and social changes in the past two decades, China has become a popular destination for tourists, investors, and diverse communities of migrants. When foreign-language-speaking migrants interact with Chinese criminal justice system, they rely on interpreters to participate in the proceedings. Based on four-month trial…

A great deal has been written about what English as an International Language (EIL) actually is (e.g. Alsagoff et al., 2012; Matsuda, 2012; McKay and Brown, 2016; Sharifian, 2009), ranging from a view of EIL as the many varieties of English that are spoken today to the use of English by second language speakers of English. Thus, EIL is viewed both…

Because English is widely used as a lingua franca, language testers have started to consider the introduction of non-native accents into English listening tests. This study investigates how accents influence test-takers' performance, and also elicits test-takers' subjective perception of accents. Eighty adolescent L1-Mandarin test takers were…

To study the success of an international event handling in Thailand with a focus on the area of mutual communication, this paper aimed to shed light on how English is used as a lingua franca among the local Thai working team and the organizer team who are non-native speakers from different language backgrounds to achieve their mutual understanding…

On the French Guiana-Suriname border, a hybrid space, members of the same population groups engage in circular mobility but little is known about the practices of these transnational communities. We explore how traditional emic social distinctions, modern states' language ideologies and emerging discourses in the urban context shape Maroon's…

As universities attempt to change their medium of instruction from the local languages to English and become more international by recruiting international students and teaching staff, their academic English language policies and practices appear to be more prominent. The use of English in higher education as the medium of instruction and the…

Macau is a small Special Autonomous Region (SAR) of China, located on the Pearl River Delta, adjacent to Hong Kong. Unlike Hong Kong, its colonial heritage is Portuguese, rather than British. Macau's official languages are Portuguese and Standard Chinese and the most widely spoken local language is Cantonese. With the influx of gaming finance into…

While most research in applied linguistics has focused on second language (L2) speakers and their language capabilities, the success of interaction between such speakers and first language (L1) speakers also relies on the positive attitudes and communication skills of the L1 speakers. However, some research has suggested that many L1 speakers lack…

The Vanuatu government has recently implemented a policy of vernacular literacy. Children are now to receive the first three years of schooling in a vernacular language. Needless to say, in a country with less than 300,000 people [Vanuatu National Statistics Office 2016 Accessed January 4, 2016. http://vnso.gov.vu/] and more than 100 indigenous…

From a critical sociolinguistic perspective, this article investigates the written linguistic practices of 20 labor migrants from heterogeneous backgrounds who organized their life trajectories in an "ethnic" call shop in a marginal neighborhood near Barcelona. This was a late capitalist institution informally providing the undocumented…

Although there seems to be no doubt that English as a lingua franca paradigm has affected the focus of English language teaching toward the issue of mutual intelligibility, studies involving only non-native English speakers (NNS-NNS interaction) are still in their infancy. Using a sequential analysis, this study examines how Japanese learners of…